Mind is like a spring

The mind is like an elastic spring. You push it, you press it, you resist it, you apply force against it, and it only gets more power and more energy from your very action.

And so, applying resistance against some pain-inflicting mind content, a fear, a distress, wishing to get rid of it in this way, you achieve the opposite. The spring is not backing off at all by your move, on the contrary, it gets more force and pushes back.

Instead of fighting it, live the spring aside and just watch it, watch it loose. Respect it and accept it. But also, see it begging you to push it, even a little bit, so that it gets some strength, see its protest of being left aside feeble, inactive and thus bored to death (not only literally).

Mind has no its own qualities just as pure water has no any kind of color. Water takes the form and color to which it is attached. If water is kept in inside-red colored pitcher then water takes the inner shape of pitcher along-with its red color. If it is kept in transparent glass then water becomes transparent and takes the inner shape of the glass. When child is born; his mind is noting except the blank slate.Mind is the nature of sucking capacity to which it is connected so in order to that it starts to record / receive qualities etc. from them. Sri Ramakrishna taught to his disciples giving this examples of water to which they learned with very difficulty as stated in book named 'MEDITATION' etc.

Quite true although the owner only control the tension on the mind. Many will relax the tension if they accept the source of information feeding into it as an authority. Example: Most people in the United States so love the ideology of the US they can't see the leaders doing wrong, thus, they refuse see clearly what is going on with their leadership.

The best practice is to be skeptical of every external thing being fed into our minds until the individual has found evidence and substance to prove the validity of it. Example: We have heard of god and devil, along with pretty and ugly, good and evil and the like, so long we accept them as facts, yet we can not find evidence for either abstract. Our own sense judgments suffices justifying pretty/ugly and good/evil concepts while not wanting to be different is all it takes for god/devil.

Skepticism keeps the tension, without it the mind receives without resistance. Logical reasoning, after observation and participation, should be the only way one relaxes the tension to allow the mind to accept information as fact but always keep a low level of skepticism as other facts may change it all.
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Have you questioned your beliefs? Reason the different concepts until all pros and cons are integrated into the 64,800 degrees of your vision.
--Elijah "NatureBoy"--

To be skeptic is another activity of the mind. Actually, it is one of its prime activities That refuel it.

Renounce skepticism as well.

AS the post says, the only way is to accept and observe the mind's activity, this is the only way for the observer to go beyond the mind. Just meditate and watch the mind's activity - watch and accept whatever is there.

For people on the path requiring the clearing of the mind that maybe true but for those on the path to comprehending life it's a requirement. My path is the path to wisdom, it require observing the mind but keeping the tension under all conditions. Being skeptic is the means of maintaining that tension.

The path of wisdom require maintaining a state of meditation while giving and receiving concepts for analysis, therefore the mind has to be protected from misinformation. Without being a skeptic one is easily deceived, the information is sucked up like a sponge and believed without proof, skepticism allows it to be received but not believed. Thus, I must disagree for my path.
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Have you questioned your beliefs? Reason the different concepts until all pros and cons are integrated into the 64,800 degrees of your vision.
--Elijah "The NatureBoy"--

There are many paths far below the path to the finial peek of the mountain of enlightenment, the the path of wisdom is that final one. It require not only observing but controlling the mind. When on the lower paths man are not expected to enter nirvana from that life, only in the path of wisdom is it expected, thus, it behooves one to control every aspect of themselves rather than just an observer on that path.
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Have you questioned your beliefs? Reason the different concepts until all pros and cons are integrated into the 64,800 degrees of your vision.
--Elijah "NatureBoy"--

The path of wisdom, the path of the jnani, does not involve the mind, it is not wisdom that provided by the mind but insightful from beyond to the beyond.

Indeed, there is a basic first stage to almost all paths that is mind-based understanding but it is just an introduction to set the circumstances that should be short and marginal.

If there is something that is common to all true paths, it is the bypassing of the mind. After all, the obssesive and controlling behavior of the mind is the reason why we need paths in the first place.

The last path leading to the apex of enlightenment includes the use of the mind, Lilian. Our name, man, means "mind able to comprehend all things through observation, participation and reasoning" and enlightenment involves using the mind to recognize and comprehend rather than only observing.

The mind retains, separates the doss from the gold and files the information for reuse, that requires using it. Your statement, "the obsessive and controlling behavior of the mind is the reason why we need paths in the first place," is correct, it's the I that's required to control the mind rather than have mind control the I. That is the finial stage of enlightenment, jnani or wisdom on earth's plane, controlling every fiber of our existence, I included, and when we've reached nirvana or the kingdom of heaven of Christianity.

The paths requiring observing the mind's working familiarizes I with the mind. To reach the apex require total self control, complete self realization. There are paths which requiring us to observe the I because without knowing it we can't control it, but integrating and controlling them completes our earth plane's learning.

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Have you questioned your beliefs? Reason the different concepts until all pros and cons are integrated into the 64,800 degrees of your vision.
--Elijah "NatureBoy"--

You are complicating the simple - the last thing you have to do is to control your mind. The very essence is not to control anything, just to observe. Not to control and not to intellectualize - these both are the best recipies to strenghten the mind. who is controlling the mind? who can try to control other the mind?

I suggest you to read Ramana Maharshi's Self Enquiry booklet or Nisargadatta Maharaj's I Am That. They best explain this.

Things are much easier than what our mind tends to think. Much easier. You just need to be still and attentive. I talk from personal experience, not from some belief or dogma.

The difficulty is in explaining my experiences where anyone can comprehend them. Knowing the law of living on earth is reincarnation governed by karma for the purpose of learning the material plane by experiencing it completely, I'm attempting to explain my observation, participation and reasoning experiences.

An I is the eternal part of one while there's the I of the material self, they both have to recognize each other, therefore in some incarnations the eternal observes the physical I and vise versa. On the path to integrate the two, every attribute of the two I's must be known to each other. The saying of Jesus "I am in the father and the father is in me" is the most common expression of it.

Upon integrating all attributes on the path of wisdom we illuminates both, like the candle does a dark room. To do it every attribute of the eternal and temporal must be known by both minds, temporal and eternal. For that reason one I observes the other mind and the other I the one mind.

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Have you questioned your beliefs? Reason the different concepts until all pros and cons are integrated into the 64,800 degrees of your vision.
--Elijah "The NatureBoy"--

I suggest you've never applied it in your life, you are only expressing something you've heard someone else say. Being in the present is definitely a part of it as well as [objectively] accepting and observing what happens but that isn't putting pressure on it nor releasing the pressure.

My experience is when one shares their findings they encounter opposition, that's putting pressure on the mind, and to make it maintain it's shape you debate your side objectively, sometimes including some of their concepts to return to the original shape gave the resistance to return. When sharing our views and someone attempts to extend it into a enlarged position we objectively debate their issues, sometimes integrate parts of theirs, giving us the strength to maintaining our original position.

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Have you questioned your beliefs? Reason the different concepts until all pros and cons are integrated into the 64,800 degrees of your vision.
--Elijah "The NatureBoy"--

Generally, it's one's vision they're attempting to explain. Your spirit's [inner] eyes see what you're explaining but sometimes our words are not quit describing it. When someone attempt to change it we see another avenue to make the words say what I see. In turn, the clarity of expressing the vision increases and with it a much clearer vision.

Like it's said in my signature below, we should have a vision of a ball, 64,800 degrees, and everything has its place in it. Every time someone work to change it your reasoning, often including parts of what they presented, pulls everything back into the sphere. Thus the outline remains the same, our understanding and delivery improves.
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Have you questioned your beliefs? Reason the different concepts until all pros and cons are integrated into the 64,800 degrees of your vision.
--Elijah "The NatureBoy"--